The New York Times reports:

In late April, a lawyer for the Justice Department told a federal judge that her colleagues had been in the midst of negotiations with a Rhode Island hospital about turning over gender-transition treatment health records, only for the hospital’s lawyers to stop responding.

But Judge Mary S. McElroy of Federal District Court in Rhode Island concluded that was not true. While the government claimed it had not heard from the hospital since February, emails showed the hospital’s lawyers had stayed in close touch.

In a scathing ruling on May 14, Judge McElroy called the government’s account “misleading, if not utterly false.” At issue in Judge McElroy’s view was the “awesome power” wielded by government lawyers and the trust that they will “play fair and be honest” with courts.

The Justice Department “has proven unworthy of this trust at every point in this case,” she wrote.

The opinion was one of several heated rulings from federal judges in recent weeks castigating the government’s lawyers for withholding information and making assertions that turned out to be at odds with the facts. [Continue reading…]